Midge
and the Pot Of Gold
(A
Children’s Story)
By
Pamela
Perry Blaine
©March
2005
Early
one spring morning Midge and Glen were sitting underneath an old
wagon
playing “make believe.” Midge
had her doll that Grandma Rosa had
made
from an old sock and Glen was busy positioning some old boards
in
a square to keep his pet frog, Jimmy, from hopping away.
“Move over, Midge!” Glen ordered her to make room for one more
board.
About
that time big raindrops began to pelt the wagon and they saw
Grandma
running in from the garden with her apron full of garden seeds.
She smiled as she saw the children under the wagon and since
it was still a good distance to the house, Grandma got down on her knees
and crawled
under
the wagon with Midge and Glen. Midge
began to giggle because
she
thought Grandma was too big to get under the wagon but she did it anyway.
“Well,
it looks like it won’t rain for long,” announced Grandma cheerfully,
looking
toward the sky and then she frowned when she saw Jimmy.
“Now
Glen, put that frog back in the bucket right now!”
“Why?
Grandma, he likes the rain.” Glen
said.
“Yes,
I know but I’m not overly fond of frogs and besides
he’ll
get away from you”
Glen
reluctantly obeyed and just about that time the little
shower
was letting up and the sun was beginning to peek out
frombehind
the dark clouds.
“Oh
Grandma, look at the pretty colors in the sky!” Midge exclaimed.
Grandma
turned to look and said, “Oh what a beautiful rainbow!”
“What
is it, where did it come from?” asked Midge who had never seen a rainbow
before.
Glen
looked at Midge and sighed saying, “It’s called a rainbow.
Everybody
knows that rainbows happen because of Leprechauns.”
Grandma
began to laugh saying, “Grandpa has been telling
you
stories again!”
“Tell
me, tell me too!” pleaded Midge.
“Well,
Midge,” Grandma began her story, “ Grandpa likes to tell stories
about
the land where his family used to live. It is a place way across
the
ocean called Ireland, and there are many stories
about
the Little People.”
“Little
People?” Midge questioned.
“Yes,
they say that many years ago in old Ireland there lived the
Little
People, or Leprechauns. They
say they are very tiny, less
than
two foot tall! They hide from
us because they think that
humans
are greedy and foolish. Leprechauns
look like little old men
and
they dress like shoe cobblers. They
wear old-fashioned green
clothes,
a cocked hat, a cobbler’s apron, and buckled shoes.
They
make
shoes for themselves and all the other Little People.
The
Leprechauns are always busy and have to make a lot of
shoes
because they love to dance so much that they wear their
shoes
out very quickly. Grandma
whispered, “If you listen
carefully,
sometimes you can hear the tap-tap-tap of their
tiny
little hammers in the forest.”
“Are
there Leprechauns in Oklahoma, Grandma?
Are there girl
Leprechauns
too?” Midge asked excitedly.
“Naw,
there ain’t no girl Leprechauns, you silly ole girl.” Glen moaned.
“Well,
now, you just never know about Leprechauns and where
they
might turn up, even right here in Oklahoma,” Grandma announced
as
she frowned at Glen because he knew better than to be rude to Midge.
Grandma
was getting caught up in her story as she continued, “You see,
Leprechauns have pots full of gold and they hide them, Grandma
whispered
mysteriously. They are always
moving their pots of gold
because
the end of the rainbow marks the very spot where the
pot
of gold is hidden. Why,
sometimes they spend the whole day just
moving
their pots of gold to new hiding places so they won’t be found!”
Midge
and Glen had been listening intently as they stared at the
rainbow
spread across the sky before them. About
that time,
the
rain stopped and Grandma got up, brushed herself off, and
said,
“Enough stories…I have work to do.
As soon as the rows
are
ready, you two can help plant the seeds.”
Grandma crawled
out
from beneath the wagon and headed back toward the garden.
Grandma
had no more gotten back to the garden when Glen pulled
on
Midge’s arm and said, “Come on, Midge!”
“Where
to?” Midge asked.
“The
rainbow, silly, we’re gonna find that pot of gold and buy Grandma
that
blue calico she always looks at in the store when we go to town.”
“Grandma
says not to call me Silly.”
Glen
laughed and put his arm around Midge and with a twinkle in his eye
he
said, “Okay Silly, I won’t call you Silly,” and then he took off
running.
With
that, Midge took off after Glen threatening to tell Grandma as they
started
out across the prairie toward the end of the rainbow. They ran
and
ran but the rainbow was further away than it looked.
Finally, they
got
to where they thought the rainbow should be but the
rainbow
had faded away.
“Durn
it, it’s gone!” Glen exclaimed.
“The
Leprechauns must have moved it.” Midge said sadly.
Glen
took Midge protectively by the hand and turned back toward home
both
of them looking forlorn. The prairie grass was so tall that Midge
couldn’t
see over it so she got behind Glen and held tightly to his
shirttail.
They walked and walked for what seemed like forever to Midge.
“I’m
tired, are we lost?” Midge sniffled.
“No
we ain’t lost!” Glen said quickly, even though he wasn’t quite sure.
Just
then, Midge could hear the grass going “swish-swish, swish-swish”
and
then a tap-tap-tap sound. “It’s
the Leprechauns!” Midge
whispered
in
fear as she grabbed Glen around the waist and hid her
face
behind his back.
Midge
and Glen stood motionless when all at once they looked up and
there
was Grandma! What a relief!
They were glad it was just the tools
in
the pockets of her apron that made the tapping sound because
neither
of them were quite sure they were ready to meet
up
with a real Leprechaun.
Midge
was so overjoyed to see Grandma but then she saw that
Grandma’s
face looked very angry. “What do you mean going off like
that,”
she shouted. “You know you
aren’t supposed to go this far
from
home! What on earth were you
thinking? You must be
two
miles from home!”
“I’m
sorry,” Glen said quietly, deciding to take the blame.
“We...we...were
just
looking for the pot of gold,” he sputtered, “and…and we were
going
to buy you the calico with it. We
didn’t know it was so far away.”
Midge
began to cry.
Poor
Grandma, she was so angry and yet so relieved that they were
both
all right. Grandma also felt
bad because she remembered that i
t
was her fault for telling them the story about the Leprechauns and
the
pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
Grandma
sighed and kissed them each and then took them by the hand.
As
she walked back toward the house with a child on each side, Grandma
explained that the pot of gold was just a story.
She then told them the true meaning of the rainbow and how God had
put it in the sky after the flood to
let
them know He would not destroy the earth again by a flood.
“The
rainbow is God’s reminder… like a promise, a covenant,
that
God made to Noah and to all of us.” Grandma explained as she
leaned
down and took their faces in her hands, “My sweet children,
Grandma
continued, “God said, “ I have placed my rainbow in the
clouds.
It is the sign of my permanent promise to you and to all
the
earth.” God wanted to show us
how much He loved us so he
put
the rainbow in the sky and that, my children, is worth more
than
any old pot of gold.”
By
Pamela
Perry Blaine
©March
2005
May
the roads rise to meet you.
May the wind be at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face;
The rain fall soft upon your fields
And, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the palm of His hand.
(An
Old Gaelic Blessing)
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